


isolation makes me hungry

by athanasija



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, GeorgeNotFound-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt No Comfort, Loss of Trust, Pandora's Vault, Platonic Relationships, Prison, wrote this after tommy's visit to the prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29092299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athanasija/pseuds/athanasija
Summary: George pays a visit to his ex-best friend, Dream. Except it's a prison visit, George sucks at emotions and Dream isn't making it any easier.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Georgenotfound & Sapnap (Mentioned)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	isolation makes me hungry

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I'm quite exhausted with writing right now. It's hard as hell and I don't feel like I'm improving at all. I write so many stories I never finish or edit to be postable, (also screw editing, it sucks). Idk why I'm even posting this. As long as at least one person enjoys it even tiny bit, I'm fine with that too.
> 
> Yeah... sorry for the rant.  
> Once again, if you spot any grammar/spelling mistakes or have any criticism, feel free to leave it down in the comments!
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> -  
> Title taken from AURORA - Animal

“How does all of this even work?” George asks a question he can mostly answer for himself. But a barricade of lava blocks his path and he’d rather keep talking than listen how it’s pulling back in an enormous tide.

“Sorry, George. Can’t tell you out of security reasons,” Sam says from behind. The hard obsidian walls around them trickle into his voice. No jokes, no laughs; the usual kindness laced in his tone is gone. “It should be any second now. Once the lava is down, I’ll need you to step on the bridge and move along with it. Then wait at the front of the cell until the lava falls down again.”

George nods. Maybe he should have brought Sapnap. No. He’d jump on Dream’s throat the second he saw him and George really doesn’t have the energy to deal with them fighting. Would Dream even fight back? He has nothing to lose nor win.

The lava falls and George stiffens. He’s _not_ ready.

Standing, in what can be described as a thick pillar splitting through the middle of a massive obsidian room is _Dream._ Contained like a great beast, it’s almost like the lava is scrambling to escape from him.

But locked in that cell, he looks awfully small, awfully human. _He is human,_ George has to remind himself. Most the things Dream had done were recounted to George second-hand. The manipulation, lies, stirred conflicts, destruction. Dream is a man of great skill and charisma and those are dangerous in the wrong hands. And as much as he’d love to claim otherwise and call him a monster, those things are all very much human.

“Alright, step on the bridge. Don’t forget to walk along with it,” Sam’s words have to fight their way through to his brain.

“Alright… wait! Are you going to suspend me across all this lava-,” George ends with a shriek when the platform under his feet shudders to life. He catches himself. “Warn me next time!”

His heartbeat is deafened only by the pistons pulling him across. Step by step, Dream gets closer to him, he gets closer to Dream. Too late to turn back.

The platform halts at the obsidian box; erected barrier keeps Dream back until the lava encompasses them once again. They’re trapped together, beneath thick walls and security one can only dream of. George inhales the thick hot air. When was the last time he felt unsafe by Dream’s side? Maybe never. You’re not meant to be fear your friends, but they’re not friends anymore.

All George can hear is his own rapid pulse and popping of bubbles. Dream stares at a clock on the wall.

“How are you, Dream?” A beat of silence haunts them.

“Well… I’m in my own prison. I lost all my stuff and… you know.” Dream shrugs. “So. Not very good.”

The obsidian walls cave in. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have-“ George stops. What can he say that Dream doesn’t already know?

Nothing lasts forever, George used to tell himself a long time ago. Not friendships, not love, nothing. Dream and Sapnap changed his world-views several ways since then. With them could have been open and truly _himself_. This Dream feels like a stranger, the air is charged and chokes the words in George’s throat. He doesn’t know what to say, can’t estimate this man’s reactions. Perhaps he had been right all those years ago. Nothing lasts forever, including the burning star named Dream.

“Why are you here, George?” His name on Dream’s lips is familiar; almost like he was born to say it.

George asked himself the same question the whole time Sam was leading him through all the different contraptions and security protocols.

_Because I want to know why._

“Just… came to see how you were doing.” This time it’s George’s turn to shrug.

“I see.” The white mask stays facing the clock. George never got to find out what’s beneath it.

_Did I mean nothing to you?_

“Well,” Dream says airily. “You’ve got what you wanted to know.”

“What do you do the whole day?” George blurts out, desperate to keep the conversation talking. He can tell when Dream is dismissing him.

“I look at the clock or I lay in the bed.” The answer feels almost practiced. “I have some books and quill. I think I’ll start writing in them soon.”

“Won’t you go like, insane or something? From being kept in isolation?” George blurts out and it’s moments like these when he curses the inability to speak his emotions. They’re left to swirl in his chest as a mixture of gunpowder and sand, waiting to catch that dangerous spark. The _pop pop_ of the lava is already driving _him_ insane.

“Sam talks to me sometimes.” Dream nods to a speaker in the top left corner. “But I can’t promise I won’t go crazy in here.”

George searches for a ghost of a smile on Dream’s lips, or… anything. Anything that differs from this nonchalance. The contrast to today’s morning is terrible. _I love you_ , Sapnap said to him, dawn stilled by the imminent heaviness of George’s upcoming prison visit. They were sat by the Nether portal stairs, overlooking what once used to be their home. George has never been like Sapnap or Dream, but in that moment, it felt alright to say, _I love you too._

“I think you should go, George.” Dream’s voice chills through the molten heat of lava. “I don’t know what you hoped to gained here, but you don’t have to waste anymore time.”

The black lenses of George’s glasses make the cell infinitely darker.

“Leave, George.”

Dream isn’t telling him to just leave the prison, he’s telling George to leave _him._ Locked up, angry, alone. Is he also sad? Does he mourn the loss of his friends like they mourn him? Maybe he just mourns his wrecked plans and yearns after the control he had over Tommy. _Tommy_. With that, George is reminded of what Dream has done. He shouldn’t feel sorry for him.

“I always hated how you thought you knew everything about me,” George says.

Dream stays staring at the clock, his mouth pulls into a displeased line.

“I still know more about you, than you could possibly know about me. So, go back to your stupid little house and tell Sapnap he doesn’t have to bother visiting me.”

George wants to pull back, recite every little thing Dream has done wrong, but this close, it’s hard to keep his heart cold. “Yeah, you were the one who was good at knowing people, not me. I can’t tell what happened to you. But you cared about me once. And about Sapnap, and everyone else.”

“And?”

The disinterested tone makes George’s shoulder slump down. “I just- want you to think about that, I guess. Wasn’t it… better before?” Stupid, so stupid. Just like that, he has failed.

Dream shakes his head and brushes past him towards the lava. “Guard! Take him back,” he shouts.

The scathing curtain start slowly pulling away and George dugs his heels in. It’s embarrassing, he came here with no real reason, but now he feels like a self-proclaimed hero who burned a village down after promising to save it.

He stares at Dream’s back and lets his mind whirl through million solutions, but none of them bear sure results. He’s not good at knowing people. Yet, there’s a tense pull of Dream’s shoulders that he recognises from the years spent by his side. A silent sadness hangs around Dream’s body. The platform arrives.

“I know you gave up on us Dream,” he says once he steps onto the platform and Dream steps back to his clock. “I can’t claim I’ll fix you or whatever. But I don’t want to give up on you either. You never gave up on me.”

For the first time since he entered the cell, Dream looks at him. “Did you turn into an optimist while I was locked up in here?” He sighs. “Fine. Well, it’s not like I can stop you, but don’t complain to me once you realise it’s a waste of time.”

Something about the _‘don’t complain to me’_ causes George’s heart to clench, he won’t be able to complain to Dream ever again. It’s dumb, how his head spins at such a trivial thing.

“If it gets you to come back to yourself one day, I don’t think it’s a waste of time,” he says. The platform shudders to life under his feet and starts carrying him away.

“I’m already myself, George.”

George turns back. He wants to say, _You aren’t_ or _I miss you_ or _What happened to you?_ But he can’t force himself to. “Yeah,” he says instead and maybe if he wasn’t so shit, maybe he would have paid attention to things going awry earlier, maybe he could have prevented all of this.

The time is up, the platform departs and his limbs, laden with despair almost refuse to carry him across.


End file.
